Langford IC Systems Inc. launches LIC Instrument Processor cleaning system to reduce infections from endoscopes

Langford IC Systems has successfully launched a cleaning machine that radically improves sanitation of surgical instruments, endoscopes and implantable devices. The new LIC Instrument Processor machine will significantly reduce the probability of reusable medical devices spreading disease between patients in clinical settings.

In February 2015, the FDA issued a safety warning on a specialty endoscope that was linked to transmission of a drug-resistant superbug known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE. CRE infections contributed to the deaths of two patients at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles who had undergone a procedure with this particular type of endoscope, known as the duodenoscope. Eleven patient deaths were also linked to CRE at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle after duodenoscope procedures between 2012 and 2014. In both cases, the hospitals were found to have cleaned the scopes properly, according to approved protocol. However, that protocol has proven insufficient to protect patient safety, due to inadequacies in the best available cleaning equipment. The new device, invented by Langford IC Systems and developed in partnership with Proven Process, uses a different cleaning mechanism than medical device cleaning systems currently on the market.

Until now, endoscopes and other reusable medical devices have been cleaned in machines that push water and disinfectants through them at high pressure in a one-way flow, like using a garden hose. It is ineffective in eliminating all residues because the instruments' geometries are complex, and the water cannot push through all the curves and corners with sufficient force to scrub them clean. Any bacteria remaining can infect a patient undergoing a procedure where the instrument is reused, even after cleaning.

Langford's new LIC cleaning device operates on a totally different basis. The only endoscope cleaner in the world that uses no connectors, it is engineered to generate a fluid dynamic that pushes and pulls fluid at fierce velocity, reversing direction thousands of times through the scope and its channels, inside and out. The LIC's unique, patented technology creates a pressure-controlled, powerful mechanical shear that removes the toughest of soils from both the inside and outside of an instrument. The effect is a powerful scrubbing action on all of the endoscope's surfaces, corners and crevices.

The FDA has required manufacturers to provide studies showing new scopes could be disinfected. But the new rules do not apply to devices already on the market.

Comment: Olympus is being sued by patients in the US infected from its duodenoscope, Q180V, who claim that the company did not update cleaning instructions for its instruments. The FDA has started an investigation.